"Man and Society" essay example

Getting to work, first, you need to answer the question: what does the term "city" mean in the sociologist's understanding? First of all, of course, this is society itself, without which the city is unthinkable; a society that changes day by day and at the same time changes this complex world, created by people themselves for all of their existence.

Concerning the problem of the city as an object for sociological analysis, it is worth mentioning the name of Robert Park, an American sociologist known for his studies in the study of the urban environment. In his opinion, "it was in the urban environment - in a world, that man created himself - that mankind first rose to intellectual life and acquired those features that distinguish it most from animals and primitive people." In this sense, the urban community is something unique, which in its essence is different from nature, because it is uncharacteristic of many features that a person has managed to cultivate in himself during his life in a new environment for himself.

But look at the city from a different angle. On the one hand, it was with the help of the city that the society managed to expand its capabilities, transform its life and make it much more comfortable. But what is the other side of the coin? And here we come to the main theme of the work: living in huge metropolitan areas, where it would seem impossible to feel lonely, people are more separated from each other. The philosopher of the sixteenth century Rene Descartes wrote the words: "Solitude must be sought in big cities" - is it worth saying how much this phrase is relevant for the XXI century?

Shrinking in big cities in the hope of building a new, happy future, people often remain with nothing, feel as strangers in a new atmosphere and are lost among a huge number of people like them, the townspeople. Over the past 50 years, the number of elderly people in Russia leading a lonely lifestyle has increased, and this trend continues to develop in a negative direction for society. The state is trying to combat this social problem by supporting the creation of new homes for the elderly and in every possible way sponsoring various activities aimed at helping pensioners and disabled people, but, unfortunately, this is not enough: people who are used to living alone can not overcome themselves and open themselves.

Such mistrust of others is typical not only for the elderly people but for the whole society as a whole. To prove this, it is worth at least go down to the Moscow subway: it is rare to see a person here whose face will not be overshadowed by the weight of daily worries and problems. Being in the car, you feel "a feeling of insecurity, your inappropriateness and at the same time a feeling of alienation, a desire to step back from the other, watching to see if you are going to get up and go out, or dangerously hanging over you." It's no wonder, why in such a pumping atmosphere everyone tries to close, hide from the external negative, closing in himself.

Speaking about the problem of human loneliness in the city, I would like to recall the work of H.W. Zorbo "The Gold Coast and the Slums." In it, the author showed two completely different at first glance, the world of Chicago: "the world of secular society" and "the world of furnished rooms." You might think that there can not be anything in common between them, but what unites them, in fact, is much more important than the financial position or status in society. Speech, of course, is about the separation of people from each other. Perhaps in the high society of the Gold Coast, this feeling of loneliness was not felt so much by the very representatives of the world, as the feeling of oppression and despair experienced by the inhabitants of the "slums". But if you look deeper, both the residents of the Gold Coast and the inhabitants of the apartment houses did not know a single person close, only occasionally communicating with some either for the sake of "exposing themselves", as happened in the "Gold Coast world", or by mere chance, because among residents of apartment houses, there was a "universal barrier of mistrust." It's difficult to say if the situation has changed today because in our time people try to establish relations with at least those who they see almost every day. But even if a person has several such acquaintances, can one say that he is not alone?

According to Georg Simmel, "the independence of the individual, which is the result of mutual isolation and indifference, constituting the conditions of the spiritual life of our broad circles, is nowhere felt so much as in the close confusion of large cities because physical closeness and crowding only emphasize spiritual remoteness." Indeed, it is in a crush that a person is particularly keenly aware of his insignificance. Everyone knows this feeling: in the subway at rush hour, on a busy street people do not notice each other, trying either to abstract from what is happening or to throw out the accumulated negative on anyone who will be around. The question arises, why does this happen? Why do people do everything possible to build around themselves insurmountable obstacles that close them from the outside world, instead of, on the contrary, meet each other?

Perhaps this is one of the many tasks of the sociologist's work - to understand the reason for such a negative and indifferent attitude of people towards each other, especially among the inhabitants of megacities, and therefore - to answer the question of how to eradicate this all-consuming sense of loneliness, the second, who lives in the city. Now it's hard to imagine what the society of our time would look like if it were not so aggressive and indifferent, but the main thing is that one can say for sure that it would be better in many respects, however bold it may sound. That is why the city's research does not stop, with each day bringing us closer to the goal.